Fulk of Neuilly
Fulk of Neuilly († May 2, 1202 ) was a French crusade preacher.
After a troubled youth, he appeared as a preacher, where he denounced the usury, denounced the arrogance of the nobility, and prostitutes helped to redeem himself. He soon acquired great notoriety because of his piety, and above all his eloquence.
In 1191 he became pastor in Neuilly -sur- Marne, he received his theological training at Pierre le Chantre in Paris. In 1198 he founded the Cistercian abbey of Saint -Antoine -des- Champs in Paris.
In the same year, Pope Innocent III. to the Fourth Crusade, but that came at the French nobility with little enthusiasm.
"In France, was the most important tool of the pope preacher of itinerant Fulk of Neuilly, who had long been trying to call a crusade to life. He was widely known for his fearlessness in the face of princes, such as when he ordered King Richard that he should let go of his pride and his avarice and his sensual appetites. At the behest of the Pope, he moved about the country and persuaded the peasants to follow his landlords in the Holy War. "
" In November 1199 invited Count Theobald III. Champagne of his friends and neighbors to a tournament to his castle Écry on the Aisne. When the jousting was over, the conversation turned to the need for a new Crusade between the men. This was one thing that was very keen that counts at heart; because he was the nephew of Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus and brother of Count Henry, who had ruled in Palestine. At his suggestion, an itinerant preacher named Fulk of Neuilly was called in to talk to the guests. Fired by his eloquence, swore the whole society to take up the cross; and a messenger was sent to tell the pious resolve the Pope. "
Fulk died before the crusade was diverted to Constantinople Opel. His contemporaries accused him of embezzling a part of the collected money for the crusade.